The emergence of teacher professional identity is conceptualized as a transitional process of developing professional knowledge and competencies within contextually embedded practices, ultimately leading to transportable identities (Li, 2022). As a dynamic, multidimensional, and context-dependent construct shaped through interaction, expressed variably across situations in a multidimensional self-regulative processes, the emerging self involves transitional identities as fluid, temporary constructs “in between,” merging different developmental trajectories and transitive processes. It encompasses multiple situated identities, emerging through the co-construction of discourses, shaping situated selves through co-adaptive actions. This process necessitates the continuous coherent integration of multiple identity positions and interactive roles into a coherent self that ensures both stability across discursive transitions and openness to transformation, while enabling the deliberate self-regulation when adapting to new contexts, roles and tasks. Cohesive capacity arises from the monitoring and regulation of self-transformative, adaptive actions that are bound to authentic interactional and developmental dynamics. Fostering competencies for navigating this inner transitions includes beyond self-monitoring and self-regulation (cf. Arrastia-Chisholm et al., 2018), the constructive recognition of the challenges and their transformation them into learning opportunities, cultivating a process-oriented, adaptive and action-research mindset, in order to guide these processes in innovative and productive ways, effectively steering the transitions toward enhanced professional agency and self-regulated development. Such processes can be constructively navigated through the lens of transitional reflexivity, which provides a unifying framework for explaining how micro-adaptive actions, transformational learning in situ and overall professional self-development and self-coherence are dynamically maintained and developed across contexts and over time. The self-competence for managing such transitions provides a framework that enables the constructive engagement to meet changing conditions (cf. Fairbanks et al., 2009), thereby fostering a dynamic continuity of professional identity across different dynamically evolving contexts. While a certain degree of reflexive self-distance is essential (cf. Jehle and McLean, 2020), an excessive degree can risk fragmenting the emerging teacher identity. When understood as transitive reflection, however, this self-distancing assumes a dynamic but integrative role, without fragmenting problematic experiences or framing them as deficits, but rather facilitating their incorporation into a coherent trajectory of self-development. In this way, transitive reflection preserves continuity across experiential transitions, enabling novices to transform reflexive self-distance into a resource for adaptive self-regulation.

Transitional reflection supports self-navigating emerging selves by fostering a resource-oriented understanding of contexts, in which learning, conceptualized as adaptive transformation, involves a shift from deficit-orientation and the use of challenges as productive trigger to develop solution-oriented adaptive actions. In this context, some differences between in-service teachers and novices, in how they construct their learning orientations in challenging situations, have been evidenced by Esslinger-Hinz and Denner (2019), particularly concerning goal orientation, the learning outcomes, the use of these situations as opportunities for deep elaboration and problem-reasoning. Furthermore, as noted by Weber et al. (2020), differences can be observed in the granularity of perception of problems, particularly regarding the interplay between holistic and selectively focusing processes, procedural structuring, and prognostic competence in anticipating potential courses of action. These differences also extend to the regulation of the automatic emotional and evaluative interpretations of situations. Stability in responding to challenging impulses, together with ambiguity tolerance and emotional self-regulation (Aldrup et al., 2023; Muehlbacher et al., 2022; LaPalme et al., 2022; Salimzadeh et al., 2021), emerges as a decisive factor in fostering an adaptive orientation. This also applies to the regulation of performance-limiting effects of reflective processes and especially when practical experience and subjective theory are brought into collision, as well as in relation to self-efficacy for reflection (Hußner et al., 2023), all of which can be harmonized through the introduction of the concept of transitive reflexivity in initial phases of teacher education.

As noted by Trempler and Hartmann (2020), further problems for novices arise when interpreting and aligning experiential impulses with theoretical knowledge, or anticipating potential future effects, as well as when identifying reflection trigger or developing reflection focus from different perceptions. For novices, managing these loads is crucial, particularly as reflective triggers arise from situational perceptions and experiences that do not necessarily relate to actual problems but are projected or constructed on the basis of perceptual filter or overloads, unreflected prior experiences, expectations or theoretical assumptions. Deciding which experiental trigger is salient, grounds problem construction, initiates adaptive actions or regarding linking multiple triggers in the initial phase of transitive reflexivity, warrants closer analytical attention, as it involves the concurrent perception of multiple dimensions and their complex interrelations, which shape the focus, attention direction, and activation of transitional reflexive movement. In this sense, the emergence of reflexive triggers is not a linear reaction to discrete events and real problems but a dynamically co-constructed, contextually embedded process shaped by the interdependencies within the learner’s experiential field. It functions as a regulatory mechanism guiding adaptive action, and in a broader sense the professional development in the connecting experiences and action cycles. Since subjective theories may exert both constraining and enabling influences, learning to engage reflexively and adaptively with challenging experiential perspectives within transitional reflexivity can lead to positive outcomes for actional flexibility through a greater integration of reflection-in-action into the ongoing flow of practice. By addressing this gap, the present study investigates how novices construct their general problem perception, differentiate among multiple problem domains, and how their interplay influence adaptive action and transitive reflexive movement—thus determining the direction of professional development processes.

Since transitive reflexivity emphasizes the development of alternative courses of action, the key reflective domain concerns fostering the self-perception of multidimensional adaptive actions and their elaboration. As novices often struggle to recognize and utilize contexts as resources, “lacking a transformational vision” (Liyuan et al., 2024, p. 31), this can be supported through training in transitional reflection, which focuses on co-adaptive actions that couples one’s own actions with those of other co-participants. It supports integrating multidimensional adaptivity processes, thereby regulating multiple domains of action and moving beyond evaluating, critical reasoning and problematizing toward solution-oriented engagement. Instead of standardizing actions, the emphasis is on creative processes that foster problem and contextual analysis, multidimensional reflection loops, and authentic contextual reasoning, rather than cognitively and emotionally demanding forms of analysis that often pose difficulties for novices. As noted by Jehle and McLean (2020), reflection in novice contexts should strengthen resource-orientation and possibilities emerging from their own reflective engagement and professional sense-making, framing this as adaptive and not self-corrective process, as self-regulative and not external or prescriptive directed courses of action, thereby opening interpretive horizons, enabling inductively generating experiential knowledge and grounding in professional knowledge as well as the gradual emergence of professional agency. Through reframing challenging experiences into adaptive actions and manageable tasks is essential for fostering stable self-expectations, emotional regulation and self-efficacy, as teacher agentive self-perceptions—according to Hußner et al. (2023)—should promote confidence and persistence while maintaining enough uncertainty and dissonance to encourage developmental processes. Strengthening self-efficacy beliefs through focusing on adaptivity can support motivational orientations, self-confidence and self-perception of one’s own teaching capacity and overcoming self-criticism as well as other process-related competencies (Kücholl et al., 2020), but first of all strength innovation and creativity. This sustains an equilibrium between challenge and agency, routine and innovation, one’s own and the co-participants’ adaptive development.

As highly context-dependent, professional agency is understood as dynamic transformative and transitive action to actively co-construct learning environments in which learners are seen as crucial resources (cf. Liyuan et al., 2024), necessitating calibration of actions in alignment with learners, developing sensitivity to learners’ procedural perspectives and learning dynamics, drawing on their resources, and engaging in responsive, learner-centered follow-up actions. Agency is particularly strengthened through reflexive engagement in a process-oriented manner, that remains open and exploratory toward diverse, multidimensional courses of adaptively changing action. This requires adaptive process-orientation, the monitoring both of learning and interactional dynamics, and the ability to relate different levels of adaptive action across both macro- and micro-dimensions, and most importantly to focus on co-adaptivity as a means of aligning one’s adaptations with those of co-participants. Transitive reflection supports this, by fostering adaptivity not merely as localized, one-dimensional, context-specific adjustment, but also as the capacity to connect different levels of action—macro, meso, and micro—through adaptive orientation and within overarching developmental mechanisms that guide professional growth via solution-oriented reasoning and multiple adaptive alignments across diverse situational dynamics. This perspective further adds a dynamic, temporal and developmental dimension, framing agency as an adaptive, ongoing, open-ended process that continuously demands the systematic integration of multiple levels, dimensions, and foci within evolving contexts of professional action, supporting self-regulation.

As a mediating and reflective dialogue, FLL advising serves to support ongoing learning processes and to reduce resistance within the learning system, thereby diversifying learning strategies, connecting diverse dimensions and fostering self-regulation (cf. Kato and Mynard, 2016). At its core, it seeks to uncover and activate learning resources, to initiate diverse developmental processes, and to accompany shifts in attitudes and behaviors while supporting self-regulation, or initiating transformative learning processes (Mezirow, 1991). This format is especially conducive for novices, as it allows them to focus on individual learning processes, their transformative aspects and thereby support multidimensional developmental dynamics, promoting transitional reflection for both learner and advisor. These experiences foster novices’ co-adaptive orientation, which is cyclically reflected upon, modified and further refined, in the sense of an action research-oriented learning. Beyond diagnostic expertise with consultancy-specific attitudes and interactional competences, as well as integrative application of different theoretical insights (cf. Drechsel et al., 2020; Lehker and Saunders, 2022), essential competence domains developed in the advisory process include empathic perspective-taking, solution- and resource-oriented practices and the facilitation of reflective processes that adaptively follow learners’ developmental dynamics. The navigation of transitional challenges in a process-oriented and adaptive manner involves balancing directive and non-directive interventions, addressing resistances, and facilitating multidimensional developmental processes, including engagement in inner dialogue, as well as tensions between responsiveness to learners’ individual needs and alignments with advisory goals.

Although the advisory process generally follows a structured progression (cf. Pick, 2017; Kleppin and Spänkuch, 2014a, 2014b)—ranging from the identification of learning needs and the analysis of learning processes and current challenges, through an exploratory phase and the co-constructive redefinition of the problem domain to advisory focus, to problem analysis involving mental restructuring and transformative interventions, followed by the development of new approaches and practices to expand the range of possible solutions, as well as the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of concrete actions—this process rarely unfolds in a linear manner. Rather, due to the multifocality and multidimensionality of interventions, as well as the antinomies of professional action, it often appears inconsistent and dynamic, requiring transitive, process-oriented reflection and strategically focused process steering. Due to the complexity and challenges related to interconnection of different advisory tasks, particularly when the process develops longitudinally, it also demands the inclusion of a macro-perspective in conjunction with transitive micro-reflective activities. This stimulates multiple dimensions and layers of adaptivity across macro-, meso-, and micro-actional movements within a transitively and process-flow-oriented reflexivity. Furthermore, advisors engage in a form of double-layered reflexivity as they simultaneously support learners in developing a self-regulative mindset while undergoing parallel reflective processes themselves—moving through phases of challenge identification, problem analysis, and the development of adaptive solutions. The dynamic processes support the self-transformative reflexivity (Mezirow, 1991; Lazovic, 2022), as the ability to monitor and reflect upon the dynamics of multidimensional adaptive and self-regulative activities and their functional development, as a key for sustainable professional development. Since progress- and process-oriented reflection on the advisory functional adaptive changes following learning transitions shapes self-transformative reflexivity, it places greater emphasis on the transitive reflexivity, extending the reflection-in-action with reflection on mutual co-adaptation, thereby integrating self- and learner-transformative processes. This refers both to transitioning in locally situated processes as well as to their interconnections at the meso- and, in longitudinal advisory contexts, at the macro-level—where the coherent alignment of different interventions, action contexts, and adaptive processes relates to the negotiated, expected and anticipated dimensions of process progression.

As a multidimensional construct, transitive reflexivity can be here situated, among other aspects, in relation to interactive adaptivity related specifically to the adjustment of interactional practices to support learning dynamics, the development of intersubjective practices, and process facilitation, requiring specific approaches aligned with learners’ developmental trajectories. This presupposes a process-oriented reflection on situated learning and in interactional transitions, requiring continuous adaptation to varying dynamics (cf. Stahnke and Blömeke, 2022), the navigation of its multidimensionality, and developmental transitions inherent in learning processes as well as on self-regulative interactive adaptability. One of the central reflexive domains involves interactive responsivity—understood as the ability to move beyond self-centeredness and develop empathic cognitions and perspective-taking strategies (Lazovic, 2025a, 2026a, 2026b), while anchoring contextually appropriate solutions within the learning system. As García et al. (2010) demonstrate, responsivity encompass further aspects of adaptively building on learners’ prior knowledge, understanding how they construct meaning, affirming their perspectives, and acknowledging the interconnections between language, culture, and identity. It further includes developing and flexibly managing different roles, balancing interactive distance and reflection on interactional expectations and intersubjectivity, especially salient in the early stages of teacher development. Another important domain for reflective development of novices, as shown by Dopheide (2020), concerns the ability to deal with professional antinomies, enduring perceived contradictions in actions, and self- and other perceptions while maintaining the capacity for goal-oriented adaptive action in a self-motivating way. This supports tolerance for ambiguity, expanding professional-practical knowledge through challenging experiential impulses, and transforms deficit-oriented mindsets into stable adaptive and resource-orientation.

While several interaction-analytic case-studies have examined adaptivity and functionally oriented transitions in the use of certain practices in FLL advisory context (Lazovic, 2025a, 2025b, 2026a, 2026b)—such as simulated self-talk, self-disclosure, feedback, or the deployment of specific linguistic resources like tag questions—, there are, to date, no studies that investigate reflection practices addressing interactive adaptivity in terms of transitive reflexivity of the novices. This gap becomes especially significant when considered from a longitudinal perspective, in the early professionalization, and related to the specific reflective modality, as this study aims to addresses by examining these phenomena within the context of service-learning-based FLL advisory interactions, exploring how transitive reflexivity unfolds in novice advisors’ reflexive engagement in collaborative setting in team meetings. It will be particularly interesting to understand on which levels novices reflexively locate their interactive adaptivity and whether this interactional self-awareness—similar to findings from developmental- and adaptivity-oriented interactional studies in professional contexts as well as on the co-construction of interactional practices (Nguyen, 2008, 2011, 2012; Nguyen and Malabarba, 2025; Pekarek Doehler and Pochon-Berger, 2011, 2019; Pekarek Doehler and Balaman, 2021; Skogmyr Marian, 2023; Deppermann, 2018; Deppermann and Schmidt, 2021)—relates to intersubjectivity work, joint activities, recipient design, epistemic self-positioning, or at the level of routinization, diversification, or specialization of resources for specific action purposes, as well as to cooperative reasoning, flexible handling of situational contingencies, and the functionalization of certain practices during advisory interactions—either in an argumentative sense or as anchoring devices for particular interactional sequences. Another important dimension concerns whether and how these aspects evolve within the actional framework of an advisory cycle—from its beginning to its end—especially regarding conceptual shifts in problem perception and reflections related to adaptivity, in order to capture short-term professionalization effects of the service-learning modality and to indicate some developmental trends in emerging reflective competence. It will also be important to see whether novices locate these adaptive activities within the scope of transitive reflexivity and relate them to the perception of change as co-adaptation—as a mutual transitioning process in which both interactants continuously engage in reciprocal transformation. Before exploring this in detail, the next chapter considers the specific characteristics of the service-learning context in relation to fostering reflexivity.

Service-learning (SL) context examined here is a reciprocal learning approach that engages students in meaningful community service to address real-world social needs, while simultaneously fostering experiential, problem-based, project-oriented, and active learning through hands-on, learning-by-doing process (cf. Clanton Harpine, 2024; Macknish, 2023; Backhaus-Maul and Jahr, 2021). Prospective teachers perceive different facets of their professional role, but most importantly see themselves as “change agents, as they recognize the importance of their educational work in influencing lives and processes” (Toronyi, 2020, p. 11). The real-life experiences and observing change in action form the basis for multidimensional reflection activities, with “learning occurring primarily through the reflective processing of problem-solving experiences” (Wirtherle, 2019, p. 170). Since SL integrates different forms of individual, group and mentored reflection (cf. Anderka et al., 2023) and various modalities of pre-/post-/in-action-reflections (Macknish, 2023, p. 45), it activates multiple levels and dimensions of reflection, deepened through new experiential prompts in new actional cycles and joint discussions (cf. Derkau and Gerholz, 2023), leading to a more refined, adaptive and responsive practice. This process shares similarities with research-based learning, as contexts are explored, analyzed, activities are systematically planned and implemented, and subsequently evaluated. This allows for deep and explorative learning experiences (Archiopoli and Murray, 2019), enabling the integration of different domains of knowledge.

Numerous benefits have been identified throughout the process of SL (cf. Reinders, 2016; Wirtherle, 2019; Macknish, 2023; Clanton Harpine, 2024), ranging from cognitive gains (such as a deeper understanding of theories, the development of higher-order reasoning), to social-interactive (including social responsibility, cooperation, intercultural understanding, diversity and communication skills, interactional linguistic awareness), motivational (such as increased intrinsic motivation), and metacognitive gains for problem-solving, analytical reasoning, critical thinking, and most importantly routinizing, diversifying and deepening reflective practices. Most importantly SL contexts foster novices’ capacity to empathetically attune to diverse learner perspectives and adjust their situational awareness and repertoires of practices accordingly. Experiencing self-efficacy and agency through adaptive engagement in the follow-up actions, is at the core of the learning process in SL (cf. Wirtherle, 2019). Beyond developing coping skills (Toronyi, 2020), creativity and goal orientation (Reinders, 2016), SL contributes, according to Wirtherle (2019), to recognizing and breaking patterns in reasoning, adjusting action flows, noticing potentials, strengthening self-regulation as well as self-monitoring and self-efficacy. The combination of different roles enhances self-perception and contributes to the stabilization of professional identity (Johannsen and Peuker, 2021). Positive effects of SL have been confirmed not only in the short term but also as having a sustainable, long-term impact, as well as effectiveness for further developmental processes (cf. Beißert et al., 2023). Openness to new learning (Kozakiewicz and Schütz Lenggenhager, 2021), examining experiences and adaptive actions, form foundations for transformative learning processes (Stürmer et al., 2023). Deepening reflective activity in SL “requires continuous, connected, challenging and contextualized” (Macknish, 2023, p. 46), as well as structured reflective activity (Harkins et al., 2018), which enables moving from selective noticing, locally making sense to restructuring ideas collaboratively and co-constructing reasoning (Macknish, 2023, p. 41), while avoiding reflective fatigue when the reflective process becomes overwhelming or unproductive (Macknish, 2023, p. 36). Some challenges—beyond focused deepening reflective action and connecting diverse reflection foci—include shifting from reflection-on- to reflection-in-action and working toward bridging theory-practice gaps (Damons and Dunbar-Krige, 2020). Directing reflection to the focus on transitivity and adaptivity in the process is here essential to overcome internal barriers, collisions in reasoning, and self-imposed limitations, moving beyond deficit-based framings, and fostering transformative learning with re-examination of personal beliefs and actions (Toronyi, 2020) and supporting the development of alternative and innovative actions.

An important learning dimension in SL emerges from collaborative reflective activities, “generating new co-constructed understandings” (Walsh, 2022, p. 168), whereby the social-interactive context of team discussions plays a crucial role in this process. Even when individual reflections in the group appear fragmented, performed, or self-staged, they always contribute to the collective reflection space, supporting collective reasoning and adaptive problem-solving. Individual reflexive contributions create a shared dialogic space in which mutual understanding of the problem, joint analysis, and common standards of adaptivity are co-constructed, facilitating collaborative reasoning and the establishment of shared norms for appropriateness, adaptive solution-finding, and problem-reasoning. When reconstructing their specific challenges within the group, individuals engage in more or less complex joint reasoning, co-constructing situated perceptions and interpretive frameworks. These are then shaped collectively by multiple subjective theories and expansions, forming what Wagenaar (2024, p. 40) describes as a “process of co-producing a third-order case,” which also functions as a reflection trigger for the entire group. The argumentative dynamics in joint reasoning (Tietze, 2010, p. 84) functions as productive irritation and reflection anchor, fostering further dynamics and the development of shared new solutions and standards. The team, as an adaptively self-reorganizing system, develops authentic dynamics within the collaborative reasoning and problem-solving process that largely depend on the communicative competences of its members and their interactive openness to actively engage in, and coherently and co-adaptively steer, the co-constructive process. These competences include, among others, the ability to use divergences as a productive interface for co-constructive and solution-oriented reasoning (Lazovic, 2025c), to establish coherent argumentative connections, participate in exploratory co-argumentation and employ discursive transitioning practices leading to new adaptive solutions (cf. (Lazovic, 2025b, 2025c). The dynamics arises, among other things, from the self- and other-positioning (Kim and Angouri, 2019), polarization of viewpoints, groupthink, social inertia as well as group cohesion, negotiated interactional patterns, and the alignment of normative orientations and evaluative frameworks as well as balancing epistemic stances and asymmetries (Fredagsvik, 2021). Novices, as the target group of this study, still developing collaborative forms of reflection, in the absence of structured formats, such as case-based counseling or process organization, tend to organize their collective reasoning in an additive manner with individual focus, leading to fragmentation, relatively limited and shallow reflection, focused on in-grouping and sharing emotional experiences. These dynamics are therefore important to examine, particularly in terms of how collaborative reflection competencies evolve over a given period, from an interactional-linguistic perspective, and by comparing interactional patterns at the beginning and end of the learning experience. A further research gap concerns the relationship between individual and collective modalities of reflection and their developmental relevance for novices. The present study starts here by investigating transitive reflexivity in the service-learning counseling context over one semester, focusing specifically on what unfolds within the group’s shared reflective space—that is, on reflexive processes that are jointly articulated and co-constructed, while the detailed dynamics of collaborative negotiation and reasoning within the group fall outside the scope of this study. In addition, a case is used to illustrate how this dynamic reflection landscape manifests and to what extent it shows orientation toward greater group-related reflection.

The participants are 14 female prospective GFL teachers (PTs), aged between 23 and 28, who, for the first time and over the course of one semester, take on the role of language learning counselors for foreign exchange students (Ls). Ls, with language proficiency ranging from B1 to C1, experience difficulties in FLL in new interactional contexts, regarding both every day and academic registers, as well as in oral (preparing presentations, participating in discussions) and in text production. The PTs engage in their counseling activities within a service-learning (SL) context during the third semester of their Master’s program. Six PTs are enrolled in the MA program specializing GFL for adult education, and eight are preparing to become teachers with a focus on German as a second language (GSL) in school settings. This composition enables the integration of different perspectives and disciplinary orientations, fostering mutual learning. As they have no prior teaching, counseling, or service-learning experience, this setting provides a uniquely formative learning opportunity. These initial practical experiences are particularly memorable and cognitively stimulating, and even within the one-semester timeframe, they exert a significant impact on the novices’ transformative learning processes and emerging professional selves. This is due to the novelty of the experience, the collaborative setting, and the use of different reflective interfaces, framing their professional engagement as an ongoing adaptive process. The significance of these experiences is further evidenced by the integration of related themes in subsequent project work and Master’s theses, as well as by the participants’ initiative to continue engaging in such activities voluntarily in later semesters. The SL context is co-curricular and closely linked to several seminars, including courses on communication analysis, language acquisition, and intercultural learning. This structure allows PTs to integrate and apply knowledge from various domains, which is particularly crucial for fostering an integrative mindset during this stage of their development. However, due to the PTs’ specific interest from the seminar communication analysis, but also the special demands in advisory context, with interactional practices serving as the central tools for advisory intervention, most of the focus tends to shift toward this area. The aim of this SL setting is not to enforce prescriptive behavior patterns, but rather to encourage an open, learner-centered, and co-constructive approach that supports adaptive and reflective professional development.

The service-learning cycle (see Figure 1) begins with a preparatory meeting, and a diagnostic activity in which the PTs analyze the learners’ language biographies and two writing samples (a letter and a pro-contra argumentative essay, both drawing on the reading tasks completed earlier) as preparation for the counseling. This is followed by a workshop on goals, practices and strategies in the counseling context. Afterward, the novice counselors work independently, meeting their assigned learners and reflecting on the sessions individually. The supervisor offers support needed, however, only a few students make use of it, as most reflective work takes place during the team meetings, where PTs take part in parallel with their counseling activities. Within this framework, it was crucial to carefully balance the action and reflective phases, so as to avoid overburdening PTs with reflection, while simultaneously leveraging reflection to support the regulation of professional adaptability and solution-finding in the process. Consequently, an individual reflection modality was encouraged before and after counseling sessions, complemented by a collaborative reflection in four team meetings distributed throughout the counseling process (Figure 1), which serve as the primary data source for this study.

Team meetings were scheduled accordingly (see Table 1), with the initial counseling phase receiving particular support through more frequent sessions—immediately after the first (introductionary) counseling session and between the second and third (fundamental in the designing of advisory processes), while accommodating individual dynamics. The subsequent meetings, planned later in the process, aimed to foster counselors’ growing autonomy and progression within the counseling cycle. A key objective is to establish routines of reflective practice, and support awareness about adaptivity and self-transformative reflection. Individual reflections complement these processes, channeling collective reflection processes toward individual learning.

Attendance was near-complete for the first and final session, while only approximately two-thirds of participants were present in team meetings 2 and 3, comprising a mix of GFL and GSL prospective teachers. Notably, six of the PTs were particularly active, consistently contributing impulses to the discussions and stimulating joint reasoning, whereas others tended to participate in a more confirmatory, reporting, descriptive, narrative modus of shallow reflection. Although not all participants attended every session, this did not affect the group dynamics, as participants continued to exchange information and provide updates to one another outside of the team meetings. As most novices lack prior counseling experience, they are not only learning by doing, but also learning to reflect and view their actions as part of an ongoing learning process and to integrate different reflection levels and contexts. Some challenges include role ambiguity and the difficulty of transitioning to a more facilitative, co-constructive, learner-centered approach. Participants report however that after an initial phase of self-exploration they begin to enter a productive, experiential learning mode and express a strong interest for additional counseling cycles to deepen their insights and refine their strategies, as well as the increasing awareness of the relevance of the structured reflection.

The data elicited in collective reflection space during four team meetings include in total 5.5 h of transcribed audio material (Table 1), and are supplemented by individual reflections of seven PTs (individual 49 reflections protocols). The team meetings were recorded in an authentic setting, with strategic device placement and participants’ prior familiarization with recordings helping to mitigate social desirability bias, while supporting focused interaction. This elicitation format was selected as open, group-based settings foster deeper cognitive and affective engagement (Trempler and Hartmann, 2020), thereby enhancing both retention and the potential for transformative learning, while simultaneously reducing reflection pressure, facilitating integration into daily routines and in-grouping, and providing a supportive space for encouragement and shared meaning-making. Self-perceptions provide valuable insights into affective constructs and confidence, which influence performance and are closely tied to the willingness to adopt innovative practices and engage with learning experiences (Copur-Gencturk and Thacker, 2020). The meetings analyzed here are characterized by the sharing of experiences and collaborative efforts to understand challenges, supporting new perspectives and possible approaches for future advisory action. However, collaborative reflection tended to center more on individual contributions, which are spontaneously commented on, compared, or followed by recommendations in an additive manner, while joint explorative co-reasoning was less pronounced. While this is not the primary focus, the interactive dynamics of joint reasoning warrant further investigation from an interactional linguistics perspective, in order to explore how collaborative reflection and interaction change over time.

The team meetings followed an authentic, naturally evolving dynamic, oriented to written prompts provided to structure the reflection. This include prompts—previously introduced in the workshop—focusing on first impressions, approaches, and process- and goal-orientation, particularly regarding the constitution of the counseling focus, learning problem redefinition and transformative and analytical work preceding development of recommendations. Further prompts addressed the connection of different counseling topics, balancing directivity, shaping learner contributions, providing recommendations, and scaffolding toward more self-regulated learning, as well as identifying difficulties, proposing solutions, and outlining next steps. In facilitating reflection-in-action, supervisor facilitates with these open prompts and occasionally intervenes during the solution-development phase with suggestions, while the key research topics of this study—perceived challenges and adaptation practices—are elicited authentically, without external interference or specific scaffolds.

The parallel individual reflections include similar open prompts, addressing participants’ perception of the situation, satisfaction, and descriptive accounts of session flow, learning dynamics, and the focus or the relation between different counseling goals. They further encourage reflection on interactive strategies for activating resources, problem analysis, and prospective planning for further action, including anticipated gains, progression, and concrete plans for support or interactive adjustments. Additionally, participants were prompted to formulate recommendations or derive general principles for the counseling process. The scaffolds enabled participants to determine their own reflective focus and to adaptively design their individual reflection process. However, only seven participants managed to sustain the individual reflection format consistently, highlighting an important relationship between individual and collaborative reflection processes that should receive greater attention in future research. Their consistent reflection was associated with greater progression.

The recorded data is transcribed and analyzed using an exploratory-descriptive qualitative content-analysis, based on Mayring’s (2022) approach. Follows an inductive approach, the data—based on coded segments with MAXQDA software—are qualitatively analyzed, thereby paraphrased, condensed, abstracted, and categorized. The data basis comprises a total of 250 units, including 180 for the first research focus on perceived challenges and 70 for the second focus on reflections regarding adaptations. The tabular representations present conceptually abstracted categories derived from the collective reflective space, but include references to individual participants (e.g., PT1, PT2). Coding proceeded in a stepwise manner—initially open (exploratory), then axial (grouping codes into categories), and finally selective (focusing on core categories). Beyond discussing overarching concepts and emerging patterns within the collective reflection context to portray the reflection landscape more holistically, one case is examined in detail to exemplify distinct developmental trajectories of transitive reflexivity of one individual participant. While the analysis remains fully qualitative and considers all data in depth, some quantifications are provided to illustrate general trends, for example, the number of codes for one category in total, or related to specific sub-concepts and their percentage distribution across specific domains. These provide insights into the internal structure and allow changes over time to be illustrated, thereby offering an organizational framework, serving to orient the qualitative analysis.

Strategically distributed to cover different phases of their advisory activity (Table 1), which consists of seven sessions over the semester (Figure 1), the data are summarized for Time Frame 1 (T1) and Time Frame 2 (T2), referring, respectively, to the beginning of the counseling cycle—following an organizational, exploratory first session and the conceptually grounding second counseling session—and to its end phase. This structure allows for an analysis of changes over time by comparing reflections at the beginning (T1) and end of the process (T2), when all PTs actively participate. This enables the examination of transitions, spanning a complete action-oriented cycle and at a sufficiently distant temporal interval, giving reliable and more visible insights in potential changes in reflective orientation than more dynamically shifting micro-level reflections, allowing to capture overarching patterns of transitive reflexivity related to this SL cycle. Although this study captures processes over the course of a single semester and gives one important piece of the puzzle for understanding transitional dynamics of reflection processes, the relevance of this study design, as noted earlier, is ensured by the novelty of the experiences and the stimulative learning contexts, the collaborative reflection space, followed by a specific interface of individual and group activities. Reflection processes in intermediate stages, as well as reflection from a micro-perspective and within the interface of individual and collective reflections, warrant further, more systematic investigation. Another advantage of the study design lies in observing these authentic processes in a unique setting, unaffected by parallel interactions or similar experiences, supports the relevance of the observation of transitional processes within a controlled timeframe. Researcher process-related reflexivity, inherent to qualitative interpretative research, was applied to prevent over-interpretation, and enhance the depth and nuance of findings, considering research ethics. To ensure reliability, rigor, and consistency, all coding decisions were systematically documented, with codes repeatedly reviewed and refined to secure intersubjective traceability. The emic perspective of participants was consistently considered, while acknowledging that subjective concepts were communicated within a collective reflexive space, grounded in shared perspectives, evaluations, and knowledge. Given the researcher’s engagement in interactional-linguistic analyses, a consistent, data-driven, sequential, bottom-up approach was consequently applied to ensure that interpretations remained firmly grounded in the data, with careful paraphrasing prior to any systematic abstraction or categorization, and free from presuppositions, experiential biases, subjective preferences, or epistemic predispositions. The epistemic and interpretative foundation was further reinforced through systematic reflection on the researcher’s epistemic stance in all steps of the analytical process, as well as through critical discussions in research colloquia. The following analysis first offers insights into perceived challenges (Section 4), followed by reflections on self-perceived adaptations (Section 5); in both sections, general observations are presented first, complemented by case-analytic insights.

Perceived challenges and tension arising from misconceptions about roles and scope of action arise from a collision between their self-expectations and those of the learners. Novices show initially a high sensibility to learners’ projections and role-related expectations, which create additional pressure for PTs, which, as summarized in Table 3, can be attributed to several domains: learner’s discursive interference and false expectations, caused by blurred boundaries between private tutoring, classroom teaching, tandem, or peer learning, leading to high expectations regarding input and learning outcomes, which make novices feel compelled to assume the role of knowledge providers or teachers—contrary to the advisory principles of indirect and co-constructive solution development and supporting self-regulation and exploration; expectations of epistemic and guiding authority, resulting in epistemic asymmetry and pressure when supporting epistemic self-repositioning or upgrading the epistemic position of the learner; demands for emotional and motivational support, which increase the pressure to operate simultaneously on multiple advisory levels and work in domains of emotional regulation, where they do not feel prepared enough (Lazovic, 2025b). Further constraints arise from learners’ resistance to reflection, autonomy and self-regulation, which leads to divergences in role-related expectations, difficulties in fostering a co-constructive interactional modality and learners’ transitioning toward more agency and self-initiative. The PT’s empathic acknowledgment of these role-related expectations—while restrictive and conflicting with PTs’ own perspectives on mutual role transitioning—frequently results in internal resistance, loss of agency and collision in interactive orientation, as expressed by one novice: “I try to engage in counselling work, but I end up falling back on the way the learner behaves towards me.” (PT 11). Nevertheless, recognizing these tensions is essential for promoting a shift toward strategically navigating between internal and external expectations, thereby fostering a bridging process and supporting a role transitions toward more co-adaptive forms of interaction through empathic practices (Table 3) (Lazovic, 2025a, 2025b, 2026a, 2026b).

On the other hand, PTs articulate awareness of self-expectations, indicating internal tensions and self-limitations (see Table 4). These are partly related to general role-transition challenges experienced in adapting to the counseling role, breaking out of the routine of being a teacher, which require transforming their epistemic stance, agency and redesigning practices. They also experience internal normative pressure and behavioral conformity, as they feel compelled to act according to standardized patterns and ensure procedural consistency, rather than flexibly exploring and adapting to the new context, which on the other side collide with authentic interactional contingences and needs to react adaptively to learning dynamics. Another challenge lies in the epistemic tension between the pressure to demonstrate professional authority, knowledge, and self-confidence, while simultaneously managing epistemic uncertainty and action insecurity due to their novice status, thereby balancing different epistemic tensions. PTs report a strong limiting and emotionally loaded feeling of lacking knowledge (epistemic uncertainty) and negative epistemic emotions related to noticing-the-gap-moments, which they gradually accept and normalize as ongoing learning process, or cope with through different strategies of managing epistemic tension through repositioning learner epistemically. Further challenges relate to controlling excessive over-accommodation and the need for validation and recognition, typical in empathy-promoting settings like in SL context. PTs also report an overload of systemic interconnectedness, as they attempt to navigate the multidimensionality of learning processes, manage interrelations among various learning dimensions, and identify effective strategies to address these interconnections. This process necessitates spontaneous role shifts and changing perspectives toward an action-research-oriented stance. These productive irritations foster self-distancing and, at the same time, strengthen learner orientation and the reflective questioning of personal boundaries for self-protection in processes of empathic alignment with the learner.

The challenges identified here reveal not only tensions between self- and other-related expectations and role management tensions, but also internal role contradictions within specific domains. As productive irritations they shape adaptive role conception and its transition in multidimensional ways—though not always resulting in flexible multiple role understanding, but sometimes in critical adherence to established assumptions about their professional role. A comparison across the two time frames suggests that novices initially engage more intensely with the external expectations, while over time they become increasingly aware of their own limiting self-expectations, which they begin to reflect in the sense of their own process transitioning, thereby developing a flexible understanding of their multiple roles and multidimensional actions. An increased self-regulation can be observed with regard to challenges experienced related to epistemic self-positioning, need for procedural consistency, and as reflexive coping with the multidimensionality of learning processes.

Novices do not initially incorporate additional diagnostic measures beyond the initial assessment. However, as their learner orientation strengthens during the counseling process, they recognize the need for such diagnostic grounding before higher-order advisory activities can be effectively managed. At the same time, they identify increasing challenges in understanding learners’ resources and learning dynamics. They address in this context diagnostic challenges arising from the multidimensional nature of learning difficulties and disparities within the learning process—for instance, in relating different competence domains—as well as interpretive challenges and discrepancies between self- and external assessments, including those related to reasoning, attributions and learning identity (see Table 5). PTs address learners’ unrealistic expectations regarding workload, learning processes and goals, which in turn trigger additional challenges, such as how to communicate necessary reductions or compensatory measures in a face-saving and constructive manner. They reflect on the challenges due to the need resolve such issues before higher-level counseling objectives can be pursued, particularly in terms of prioritizing resources and addressing contradictions that form the basis for further advisory actions. Further challenges include learners’ adherence to learning routines, limited adaptability, and, most notably, resistance to advisory interventions aimed at initiating transformational change in the learning process. PTs find themselves working argumentatively on these divergences while striving to balance them with cooperative forms of engagement—an interplay that generates further interactive tensions.

PTs demonstrate increasing sensitivity to transitional dimensions within the learning process, relating these to their own transitivity and perceiving their actions as inherently adaptive, and oriented toward learning dynamics. Over time, some of these learner-induced perceived challenges tend to diminish, as novices begin empathically to recognize and acknowledge these dynamics, reflecting more on the pre-grounding actions to support co-adaptation and bridge perspectival differences. This includes a growing awareness of the multidimensionality of learning processes, the varying dynamics across domains, and consistent efforts to work through internal resistance. By resolving reflexive challenges linked to assessment and understanding learners’ perspectives, novices develop a stronger focus on the processual, transitive dimensions and co-adaptive nature of their interaction, thereby fostering a sense of reflective composure, enabling them to engage with reduced emotional entanglement.

The interactive domain, identified as the most challenging (see Table 6, T1), is initially perceived as less difficult in relational aspects (20%) and discourse navigation (33%), but more challenging in initiating and activating practices, and in responsively following up on and adaptively responding to learners’ contributions (40%). PTs reflect on their overt focusing on the interactional dimension itself rather than on the advisory process, suggesting that reflection-in-action oriented toward interaction may inadvertently constrain action orientation and focus on the process. This may be attributable both to the authentic interactive challenges encountered in practice as well as to the effects of the workshops and seminars on communication analysis, which appear to have heightened participants’ awareness of interactive practices as central instruments of advisory work and enhanced their interactional sensitivity and self-monitoring. Over time, however, overall positive developmental trends become evident (see Table 6, T2): participants demonstrate increased self-confidence and improved coping capacities, particularly in managing discourse navigation and relational dimensions, as well as in providing impulses and activating. Nevertheless, following up learners’ contributions remains a persistent challenge, with an increase in its perceived difficulty. This may, in addition to reflecting genuine difficulties, be interpreted as indicative of an intensified learner-centered orientation and a heightened awareness of the complexities inherent in adaptive bridging to facilitate developmental transitions, a process demanding ongoing adaptivity, responsiveness, and the ability to endure and navigate the “waves” of continual change in the multidimensional process of transitioning. It may also result from an increasingly reflective engagement with transitive modes of action, which progressively serve as starting points for reflective activities. As evidenced in the example responses, novices employ terminology that denotes adaptive, open, process-oriented and multi-optional modes of action, as well as an appreciation of the multidimensionality of the processes involved. Moreover, they identify reflective points of decision within reflection-in-action, signaling the emergence of transitive reflexivity as a component of their problem perception.

Challenging aspects at the relational level (Figure 2) primarily involve the reduction of perceived dominance and epistemic asymmetry, thereby achieving a balance between the interactive positions required to open and direct learners’ actions in advisory sense (Example 1). Further difficulties arise in creating interactive spaces that foster learners’ self-initiated engagement (Example 2) and overcoming difficulties, for instance, when repositioning the learner epistemically, engaging in co-construction, and initiating shifts that enable greater agency. Several participants report challenges related to trust-building and bonding (Example 3), displaying emotional responsiveness (Example 4), and adaptively addressing and transforming learners’ expectations, all of which place considerable demands on maintaining interactive harmony, alignment and intersubjective orientation while constructively engaging with underlying dissonances (see Figure 2).

The perceived challenges in discourse navigation primarily involve uncertainty regarding mutual understanding and intersubjective alignment (Example 5), which leads to an increased need for explicit verification, resulting in epistemic imbalance and disruption at transitional points, often accompanied by a loss of discursive orientation through side sequences. The most significant difficulties emerge from over-adaptability and the resulting loss of orientation due to prioritization issues when responding to learners’ contributions (Example 6). These include unintentional alignment, re-prioritizing, and selecting impulses, re-orienting to ambiguous learners’ impulses rather than adhering to a predetermined plan, leading to structuring problems and hindering the connection of spontaneous impulses to specific counseling goals, evoking a sense of inconsistency instead of the preferred routine and structure—thus revealing a critical aspect of transitive reflexivity that arises from the uncontrolled dynamics of co-adaptivity. Conversely, in some cases, a lack of adaptability results from rigid adherence to a predefined plan, which negatively affects coherence and smooth thematic transitions (Example 7). These two reflective strands—loss of control and in intersubjective alignment on the one hand and excessive adaptation on the other—often intersect within participants’ reflections and call for a transitively reflexive focus aimed at reconciling these antinomies in discursive orientation and in the management of co-adaptive dynamics.

Challenges identified in relation to activation and initiation (Figure 3) arise from the perceived competence gaps, including the feeling of limited repertoire of various prompts and elicitation impulses beyond questions (Example 8), or the qualitative aspects of questioning (Example 9–10), particularly regarding focus, direction, depth, progressiveness, alignment, and coherence of transitions, as well as the balance between variability and routinisation of particular forms. Another challenge concerns the management of question antinomies, related to balancing their stimulating potential for co-construction and learner support against tendencies toward control or restrictive guidance, and mitigating undesired effects such as an inquisitorial tone, over-direction, or overly instructive formulations (Example 11). These aspects reflect a marked uncertainty in employing questions as reflective prompts and as scaffolds for deepening and enhancing engagement. Most notably, participants experience tensions between the interactional functions of their questioning practices and learners’ expectations for input or explanation (Example 12), often resulting in internal collision in orientation and uncertainty regarding their scope of action, experiencing uncertainty regarding discursive transitioning and balancing stimulating learner-specific development, steering and repositioning. Over time, reflections indicate a progression toward more complex questioning practices, thereby addressing the integration of multiple question types, their coherent transitions, and interlinked question sequences to scaffolding practices that recursively build upon and elaborate learners’ initial actions (see Figure 3).

The most pronounced domain of challenges concerns reactive and responsive behavior in follow-up practices (see Table 7). On one hand, these difficulties arise from novices’ self-recognition of falling into routine-based or scripted actions, automatically resorting to explanation or directive recommendation, instead of engaging in co-constructive practices. Novices reflect on their difficulties or limitations in reacting ad-hoc to local contingencies, particularly when aligning the learner’s narrative flow with advisory objectives and facilitating transitioning toward deeper and focused reflection. Specifically, actions such as (selective) focusing, pointing, directing, steering, and abstracting from learners’ contributions are identified as particularly challenging. On the other hand, self-perceived challenges in follow-up practices arise from deficiencies in dynamic process facilitation strategies and uncertainty about which follow-up actions would most effectively advance the process and support learner transitions. PTs reflect on the limited variability of their approaches, including the balance between guiding and co-constructing, as well as the extent to which actions should be elaborated, explained, or supported through joint reasoning. This indicates ambiguity in transitive orientation, interactional tension and uncertainty regarding how to co-adaptively design the transition move, balancing interactional and learning dimensions. Further challenges include a lack of self-regulation regarding language complexity and recipient-oriented formulations, such as pacing the speech rate or simplifying.

Novices further reflect on challenges in balancing along a continuum from indirect and implicit to explicit and directive approaches, related to recommendations and suggestions for alternative actions. This balance reflects a concern for co-adaptivity, in the sense of accounting for learners’ expectations and needs while modulating the interactive position to reposition them toward a more agentive and initiative-taking role. Another key challenge lies in designing follow-up moves as intermediary, bridging, or transitional steps that support, deepen, and guide the advisory process in ways that activate learners’ potential for self-initiated, progressive actions while facilitating reflective engagement in follow-ups, for example in supporting transitioning from narrative-focused contributions to goal-oriented, learning-directed engagement, which can destabilize the discursive framework through hybrid actions and ambiguous transitions. This reflective trigger points to a deeper problem perception and an increasing transitive and co-adaptive approach. A comparison of reflections on the timeline reveals shifts away from general self-awareness on follow-up moves and reflections on external, self-imposed limitations or isolated contexts and practices in general terms toward more sophisticated, specific, focused, in-depth reflective triggers with transitive considerations and integrated within action flows. These reflections increasingly emphasize PTs co-adaptive understanding, process- and transitive orientation.

Complementing these general insights within the collective reflection space, the following section illustrates—using an individual case of participant PT 10—reflexive transitions in problem perception observed across multiple sessions (Figure 4). The reflection in the first team meeting reveals a pronounced sense of epistemic uncertainty, characterized by feelings of overwhelm in response to unexpected challenges, situational complexity, and the pressure to react spontaneously to contingencies. It exposes strong negative epistemic tension and an emotionally charged noticing-the-gap feeling, marked by perceptions of insufficient knowledge and limited interactional competence. A negative self-concept is further evident in a deficit-oriented framing of the situation, emphasizing problems and dwelling on difficulties, and an overgeneralization of singular experiences, instead of engaging with the process as a learning opportunity. The PTs does not isolate a clear problem area, but rather articulates multiple perceived deficiencies in a stream-of-consciousness manner, primarily focused on her understanding of her professional role and self-limitations, hindering the emergence of concrete action strategies. A distinctly evaluative, prescriptive and normative stance is evident, shaped by the belief in identifying the “right” or “best” strategies and by rigid role expectations, as well as by the uncritical transfer of theoretical assumptions and internalized and idealized standards of appropriateness.

The reflection problematically centers on self-referential concerns related to role understanding, framed within a normative and evaluative mode of reasoning. This stance is reinforced by self-imposed demands derived from an uncritical adoption of theoretical principles (e.g., to avoid directive behavior or explicit explanations), which constrains reflection-in-action and fosters a sense of inadequacy when theoretical ideals prove difficult to implement in practice. Predominantly self-focused, the reflection is lacking focus, analytical stance and integrative connections between different experiential dimensions. It is narratively structured yet conceptually shallow, conveying personal resignation and feelings of professional insufficiency, while the learner’s perspective remains unconsidered, except for a brief and unspecific reference to possible impact/use (the learner speaks at least). Reflection is thus oriented primarily toward self-expectations, role performance, and perceived deficits, rather than toward proactive or adaptive engagement. Nevertheless, some aspects of process-related awareness and transitional orientation are evident in the use of word such as transition process, shape, guide the process, indicating emerging moments of reflection-in-action (with reflexes of inner speech within action flow), and an awareness of spontaneous adaptive efforts.

The reflection in the second meeting reveals some developmental trends: It demonstrates greater learner-centeredness, a growing awareness of the plurality of one’s own role, and the awareness of transfer from other professional contexts. This is accompanied by greater stabilization of both epistemic and emotional dimensions of experience, as well as a heightened awareness of one’s own adaptive intentions and practices. The reflection no longer appears fragmented but rather displays a more coherent, process-oriented structure, focusing on learner activation and the facilitation of adaptive behavior. The reflective focus is more clearly defined, as activities are described with greater intentionality and integrated into action flows. The tone is less evaluative and emotionally loaded, and more self-analytical with attempts to attribute challenges, within a short problem-analysis sequence, however still reflecting a rather one-dimensional appraisal, lacking in-depth situational analysis. The professional self-image is addressed in a transitional and transformative manner, allowing for acceptance, affective normalization and elaboration on perceived missteps. Instead of initial problem-centered approach, there is a discernible shift toward the formulation of adaptive future-oriented actions, marking a movement from problem recognition toward solution-oriented reflection. This indicates a more deliberate self-regulation of adaptive behavior, supported by concrete ideas for implementation and an emerging orientation toward bridging the learner’s and one’s own perspectives. The reflection also acknowledges implicit connections to other interrelated dimensions of action that may act as limiting or destabilizing factors for adaptation, leading to reflections on how to sustain professional consistency when confronted with impulses that could challenge it, indicating a proactive, transitive and multidimensional adaptive reflection that goes beyond singular action, engages with transitional “hot spots,” thereby organizing different layers of adaptive actions.

In the final reflection, the focus shifts entirely from problem-centeredness to adaptive action, with actions consistently framed as alternative courses of response. The novice increasingly replaces the term problem with unsure, signaling emotional self-regulation, greater tolerance for ambiguity and a general adaptive stance with reasoning on multiple potential actions. This shift reflects a growing epistemic certainty, demonstrating a confident epistemic positioning within the reflective process. The reflection appears more focused, specific, situated, is deeper and functionally oriented, encompassing multiple dimensions within the flow of action, thereby simulating situated talk with learner, also as reflex of inner self-talk, thereby indicating a co-adaptive orientation. It has a stronger reflection-in-action orientation, highlighting the ability to adjust and employ alternative practices with more responsiveness. The presence of numerous alternative options creates both ambiguity and uncertainty about the transitive direction, but fosters multidimensional reflection on their navigation. The reflection delves deeper into pre- and in-action planning, considers multiple alternative actions, integrates strategies for process monitoring, and allows time for adaptive decision-making. It incorporates elicitation strategies as adaptive pre-moves to access the learner’s perspective prior to intervention, serving both diagnostic and monitoring functions. This reflects a situated, co-adaptive, and empathically attuned approach that adjusts dynamically to situational assessments and the interface with the learner. A self-regulatory imperative becomes apparent, emphasizing the control of impulsive actions (being patient) and focus on practices with high relevance for the learner, consistent with a co-adaptive orientation. The initially uncertain and emotionally problem-focused stance marked by a negative self-image is now replaced by a wide repertoire of adaptive strategies, an agentive and self-trusting attitude, and a transitive understanding of professional processes. Reflection thus increasingly operates within the action flow, enabling ad-hoc, learner-oriented, responsive interventions. The transitive dimension is expressed through a deeper understanding of process dynamics, active process monitoring, and reflective consideration of one’s positioning for process regulation and opening reflexive spaces for different transitive directions, consolidating co-adaptivity as a guiding principle for responsive action.

Reflections on adaptations related to organizational level include (Figure 5) managing the tension between spontaneity and adaptive planning, and regulating relational dynamics. Within the first domain, novices reflect on developing strategies for time management, visualizing and monitoring progress, structuring conversational flows, and navigating discourse with greater transparency. The further reflection focus is on adjustments across short-, medium-, and long-term planning levels, expanding this gradually across various dimensions of learning. They reflect on strategies to sustain the interactive flow, deliberately outsourcing certain elements to phases of autonomous learning, while collaborative planning is used to enhance learner agency, foster a co-constructive orientation, and enable the integration of spontaneous planning. A recurrent theme in reflections concerns the balance between efforts at standardization and routinization and the need to maintain flexibility (Example 1) and respond adaptively to contingencies. PTs emphasize the importance of attuning to learners’ needs while maintaining a clear focus and controlling discourse progression. In doing so, they reflect on monitoring to avoid overlooking critical moments for initiating deeper reflection (Example 2). This involves recognizing relevant transitional moments in discourse that allow strategic mobilization of resources, indicating an increasing capacity to monitor interactional and learning-facilitating transitions and discourse dynamics, along with enhanced sensitivity to identifying decisive moments for shifting or supporting these transitions (Figure 5).

Reflections related to adapting relational dimensions and roles, include reducing epistemic asymmetry, adopting the learner’s perspective, employing empathic self-disclosures, and drawing on multilingual repertoires (Example 3). Initially, these strategies are reflected as interactional tools to strengthen the interactional bond but gradually evolve into subtle scaffolding mechanisms, developing their advisory multifunctionality. Regulating relationship and bonding are initially conceptualized as an emotionally and interactional regulative anchors and later as a functional empathic interface, that requires a careful balance between closeness and professional distance, displaying empathy and functional approaches. PTs also reflect on adaptive management of responsiveness, thereby on reducing their initial need for acceptance, sympathy, or interactive proximity to strengthen their advisory position (Example 4), as well as on regulating relational dimension in a moderate way to maintain a productive working alliance rather than using them as a resource for strengthening self-efficacy and self-validation. As illustrated in Example 4, novices distinguish interactive adaptation at the local, micro-level, which they later re-design over time and expand through long-term meta-reflections, gradually moving toward co-adaptivity-oriented reflections and on functionalizing interactional bonding for advisory purposes. In some cases, meta-conversations are employed initially as to clarify roles, expectations, and mutual understanding of the situation. Initially experiencing role conflicts or struggles for role consistency, PTs gradually accept role plurality and manage it flexibly, while reflecting on and monitoring role transitions to ensure coherence and functional responsiveness (Example 5).

Reflections on learner-oriented adaptations focus on the one hand on positive broadening activities, including (Lazovic, 2025a): the use of emotional regulative strategies aimed at strengthening learners’ self-image and fostering positive self-evaluation through encouragement, positive re-framing, and highlighting achievements as a form of emotional upgrading that shifts emotional valence; fostering emotional stability through resilience-building actions, in acts of “pushing boundaries”; empathically responsive practices, based on assessment of the learner’s emotional and motivational stance. On the other hand, novices employ interactive strategies to enhance learner agency, such as, initially encouraging learners to consider alternative courses of action and to increase variability and flexibility in their behavioral repertoire; prompting learners to plan concrete, precise next steps and focus on their implementation; gradually they reflect on adaptations aimed at inviting learners to summarize key points, draw conclusions, and create abstract rules; strengthening learners’ self-analytic perspective on their language development and transitional process.

Reflections on process-oriented adaptive actions (Figure 6) include three reflection domains. The first relates to opening and facilitating interactive spaces and transforming them to more co-constructive actions. This involves adaptations aimed at minimizing the counselor’s active, dominant role to providing prompts, impulses and functional re-shaping learners’ contributions, and inviting them to engage in more joint actions (Example 1). This is achieved, among other strategies, by using open-ended questions with a relaxed structure—incorporating alternatives and epistemic uncertainty on the counselor’s part—to alleviate pressure that may arise from the questioning process. Additionally, PTs reflect on extending waiting times and employing strategies to epistemicaly reposition the learner, as well as adaptively balancing between a restrained-passive and pro-active stance. These reflections suggest an interactive self-monitoring focused on specific discourse positions, where counselors functionally “hold back” and then employ reflexivity-enhancing practices, activating impulses instead of shifting into an epistemically superior and agentively dominant position. Working toward more coherence and scaffolding in question sequencing (Example 2) are also reflected, emphasizing co-constructive interaction, even when this requires persistence and consistent strategy implementation. PTs reflect on their learning process from negative experiences and from co-adaptive behaviors of the learners and their reactions to interventions. Situations associated with negative outcomes—such as learner resistance or negative feedback (Example 3)—serve as highly productive reflexive triggers, prompting adjustments toward a more cooperative, learner-oriented, and co-constructive approach. In some cases, adaptations are reflected as use of sequences with meta-reflections and joint reasoning as pre-moves, helping PTs to adjust their interventions through co-constructive actions (Figure 6).

Reflections on adaptations related to the core act of advice-giving involve firstly expanding the range and variability of approaches, secondly combining non-directive and directive strategies, and also functionalizing less typical practices such as self-disclosures. Additionally, novices reflect on adaption related to presenting possible courses of action in an epistemically open and collaborative manner inviting learners to participate in co-construction. These adaptations include pre-moves or mitigation techniques, as well as softening follow-up questions or reframing of recommendations as questions (Example 4), encouraging learners to engage in co-constructive dialogue and collaborative, solution-oriented exploratory reasoning, while also allowing space for rejecting suggestions and epistemically advancing the learner. Overall, these reflections indicate variety of adaptions, while emphasizing coherent connections to learners’ contributions, co-constructive orientation toward joint activities, and epistemic upgrading of the learner.

Although initially less prominent, novices increasingly emphasize adaptations related to shaping epistemical, learning-transitive dimensions and implementing transformative interventions. These self-perceived adaptive practices include follow-up strategies, such as assessing learners’ “understanding of the understanding” and intersubjective aligning before proceeding (Example 5), which allow adaptive adjustments of subsequent interventions and bridging actions that facilitate epistemic transitions and learning processes. Strategies such as think-aloud techniques are also employed to stimulate self-talk and make internal processes visible, encouraging learners to summarize key points and providing a foundation for deeper counseling interventions, adaptive adjustments, and the management of interactional transitions and transformative learning processes. Fine-tuning (Morek and Heller, 2020) and recipient-design are also reflected, including reducing complexity, aligning in the language use with learner, segmenting the problem domain into manageable parts, and initiating inductive, co-exploratory, and collaborative approaches, all aimed at fostering transition toward more co-adaptation. In some cases (Example 6), PTs reflect on practices of shifting their role to that of a learner in order to establish epistemic and interactive symmetry and a shared epistemical position, using this to scaffold meta-level processes. There is also a tendency to reflect on different approaches tailored to the specific transitional dynamics of various learning domains. Building on these general insights, the following section presents the second part of the case analysis, illustrating micro-reflexive dynamics observed across three sessions.

The analysis of the reflexive dynamics across three sessions indicates PTs growing adaptive process-orientation (see Figure 7).

In the initial team meeting, the PT’s reflections on adaptive actions emerged firstly as a response to prior negative experiences with L2 learners, stemming from the perceived inadequacy of her earlier non-adaptive behavior, attributing challenges to intercultural differences and insufficient empathic attunement. This self-recognition forms the basis for PTs’ adaptive orientation, highlighting the importance of heightened empathy, a deeper understanding of learners’ perspectives, and a shift toward more learner-centered practices. This is further reflected in her empathetic cognition aimed at fostering emotional regulation, stabilizing learners’ self-concept, and providing motivational support, albeit with an inherent risk of over-accommodation. The PT’s overarching adaptive logic is than elaborated also in the following sequence, with a specific reflexive focus on the practice of offering recommendations. Here, the PT displays a high interactive awareness regarding her preferred advisory practices, intentionally avoiding a directive approach when delivering recommendations, as well as an understanding that this approach may conflict with learner expectations. The PT reflects on her learner-centered, adaptively motivated strategy aimed at enhancing learner engagement through questioning rather than direct suggestions. Despite this adaptive intent, she manifests a non-adaptive orientation by rigidly adhering to this strategy to stimulate learner dynamics, leading to a fundamental tension within her advisory practice, thereby building the trigger for the next adaptive reflection. Reflecting on initial implementation challenges in balancing the complex interplay between learner-orientation and persistence to a specific action, the PT demonstrates flexibility in adapting her approach to local contingencies. However, the overarching strategy remains consistent, with modifications limited to a explicitness and directivity when engaging the learner, increased openness to optional solutions, and a shift in focus from solution to problem perception. Instead of using technical terms and elaborations, the adaptive strategy is presented illustratively, with the aim of reviving the experiential mode and connecting related strategies across similar contexts. The PT further reflects on emerging challenges in sequencing adaptive actions, noting a perceived loss of transitive control and difficulties maintaining goal orientation and alignment with the learning process. These challenges are compounded by uncertainties in assessing the learner’s uptake, overall outcomes, and the effectiveness of the advisory approach, indicating that adaptive orientation is contingent on context-specific evaluations as well as the learner’s manifest co-adaptivity. PT shows a lack of sensitivity to exploring the learners’ perspective and a tendency to overgeneralize, indicating a routinized perception and compensatory mindset, which hinders further adaptivity by favoring quick explanations that limits deeper exploration (cf. is not bad, very reflective interaction, take something from this).

In the second team meeting, the reflection on adaptive actions is triggered by the learner’s (non)adaptability, preferences, and routines, alongside the PTs’ own co-adaptive efforts to engage in a learner-centered manner, without undermining the PT’s self-efficacy. Learning routines are recognized without evaluation, and elaborated in a learner-oriented, empathic way. Rather than seeking to transform these routines, the PT aims to broaden and diversify perspectives, enhance flexibility, and cultivate awareness, thereby fostering deeper meta-reflective activity that supports self-regulation. Her stance toward the process shifts from an initially one-dimensional, self-focused, corrective to a more co-constructive understanding of the action space. Co-adaptivity emerges as a guiding principle, reflected in adaptation to the learner’s general orientations, local contingencies and in the strategic use of questioning and prompting to support reflexive engagement and interactional transitions. Compared to earlier practice, several changes indicate increasingly adaptive transitive-functionally oriented engagement. This is evident in the greater variability of questioning and the strategic use of awareness-raising questions aimed at fostering deeper reflexive engagement with the learner’s strategies, outcomes, and perceived effectiveness. These questions are reflected as pre-moves and anchors, laying the groundwork for adaptive actions, grounded in flexible expansions through follow-ups that generate more complex interactional sequences. This approach is enriched by functionally integrating practices such as drawing on personal experience, employing self-disclosures with subtle implicit suggestions, and, notably, broadening the discussion through multiperspectivity and joint reasoning. These developments indicate that the PT pursues more multidimensional advisory goals, demonstrating awareness and deploying increasingly complex, flexible practices that are adaptively combined while remaining responsive and confident amid local contingencies and coherent general goal-orientation. Reflection now centers on the learner and her co-adaptivity, fostering a multidimensional reflexivity in which adaptive actions are no longer described as isolated or fragmented regulative, reactive responses but as integrated components within complex interactional sequences, offering multiple alternative courses of action with the overarching aim of guiding the learner toward greater co-adaptivity. A key advancement is the awareness of adaptive, supportive bridging or pre-grounding actions that create an empathic interface, preparing transitional points and enabling more effective co-adaptivity for both.

In the final meeting, reflection on adaptation expands to encompass broader dimensions—extending into planning phases, diverse action positions, and the monitoring of co-adaptivity within complex action sequences. The focus shifts toward the learner’s cognitive dimensions, reasoning processes, and learning transitions, revealing deeper, multidimensional, transitive, functional, and co-adaptive layers of reflection that connect distinct advisory phases and actions. Adaptivity is not conceptualized in terms of self- or other-regulation, but as a fundamental principle of jointly co-constructing action and is deeply woven into the very structure of professional action and situated reasoning. It is embedded within the ongoing architecture of dynamic decision-making, highlighting it as foundational design feature of complex actions rather than as a derivative regulatory mechanism. Transitive reflexivity is oriented toward the learner’s co-adaptive behavior while prioritizing the learner’s epistemic and agentive advancement in central decision points. Reflection begins with pre-grounding that facilitate adaptive decision-making—through pre-actional engagement with the learner’s perspective and processes—and connects to key discourse moments where the learner’s cognitive and interactional transitions can be monitored and guided within the flow of action. Adaptive action unfolds through the initial pre-grounding elicitation of the learner’s perspective and the stimulation of “thinking aloud” to access the learner’s reasoning during problem-solving, thereby fostering Ls’ agency and epistemic position. This enables PT to follow adaptively with supportive and steering questions to deepen reflective engagement. Collaborative activities, such as joint analyses and from multiple perspectives, further foster collective reasoning and joint problem-solving, thereby prioritizing the learner’s ideas while interjecting her own professional reasoning strategically. The reflection is characterized by its process orientation and co-adaptive focus, highlighting continuous monitoring of discourse transitions. When shaping transformative learning through responsive actions, PT shows again a flexibility in combing different questioning and follow-up actions, and the adaptive alignment with the learner’s position across different phases—whether in knowledge activation, structuring, or the derivation of rules and conclusions. Adaptivity here is not tied to singular practices or forms of self- or other-regulation but emerges as a core principle embedded in the deeper design of professional action, situated reasoning, and reflection-in-action, extending across meta-reflexive levels. Although the reflection on adaptive practices becomes more complex—encompassing multiple dimensions, integrating pre-, in-, and post-action reflection, and combining different perspectives—it remains largely descriptive and factual, elaborated generally in a learner-oriented manner rather than through concrete, situation-specific analysis, which could support the development of new approaches and adaptive practices.